EggXpert

I just got my new hard drive but I have a lot of data on my 2 older hard drives that I am using right now that I do not want to get rid of.  Right now I have both of these internal HDs connected to my computer so my 200 gig HD is the primary and the 30 gig is the slave.  The new HD I am getting is the WD 320 gig and I want to make that one the master and then have both of my older HDs to both be slaves to my new one.

Basically my question is... is it going to be easy (or possible) to have 3 HDs hooked up in the same computer?  Also, how can I make sure that my new one is the master drive and the other 2 are the "slave" drives?  And one more thing... if Windows XP professional is installed on at least one of my HDs will it transfer over so I can still use it even after I add my new HD?  I lost my Windows XP disc like over a year ago and I am afraid that it may ask for my WinXP disc when I install this new HD.  Does anyone know?

Any information on this at all would be greatly helpful and I would appreciate it very much.  BTW I am new to this forum but I like the layout of it!  Very professional and clean!

Yup, there is a way to hook up all 3. But first, are they IDE or SATA drives? 

The other thing you need is a program like ghost.  It takes all the data from one drive and places it exactly how it is onto another hard drive.

Oh and welcome to the forums. 

kunzy:

Yup, there is a way to hook up all 3. But first, are they IDE or SATA drives? 

The other thing you need is a program like ghost.  It takes all the data from one drive and places it exactly how it is onto another hard drive.

Oh and welcome to the forums. 

Thanks! I believe all 3 of them are Western Digital SATA drives. BTW, just to make sure, how can I find out for sure what type they are? Will it say on the little stickers on the actual HD itself? Because I went into my device manager and it wouldn't tell me if they were IDE or PATA or SATA or anything. It just gave me the model number but not what type of drives they are. Like I said I am pretty sure they are SATA, but better safe than sorry!

Moreover, if they aren't all SATA then I probably can't hook all 3 of them up, can I? They most likely all need to be the same type of HD, am I right?  Or were you going to say something else about it?  Sorry I'm getting ahead of myself lol.

Also, how can I get this ghost program? And is it fairly user-friendly?

If it is a SATA drive, it will have a skinny data cable (about .5 in wide).  If it is ATA, PATA, or IDE, it will be about 3 in wide.

And the way it goes is with SATA, you can have as many HDD as you do ports.  With IDE, you get 2 devices per channel.  Most computers have one channel for cd and another for HDD.  So you can have 1 HDD 3 cd drives, 2 HDD 2 cd and so on.

EDIT:

As for ghost, i'll see if i can find a freebie. It is a pretty straight forward program.    Hmm, cant seem to find it off the top of my head.  I will see if i can get it to you sometime tomorrow.   Tis 4:15 AM.

kunzy:

If it is a SATA drive, it will have a skinny data cable (about .5 in wide).  If it is ATA, PATA, or IDE, it will be about 3 in wide.

And the way it goes is with SATA, you can have as many HDD as you do ports.  With IDE, you get 2 devices per channel.  Most computers have one channel for cd and another for HDD.  So you can have 1 HDD 3 cd drives, 2 HDD 2 cd and so on.

EDIT:

As for ghost, i'll see if i can find a freebie. It is a pretty straight forward program.    Hmm, cant seem to find it off the top of my head.  I will see if i can get it to you sometime tomorrow.   Tis 4:15 AM.

Ok I understand now.  Yes all of my drives *are* SATA then.  They have the skinny data cables.  So that's good at least now I know I can use all 3 of them.  By the way, will having more HDDs make my computer faster or slower, or do you know??

And yeah if you can find a freebie ghost program that would be excellent!  Thanks a lot and sleep well.

DriveImage XML works great and can be used for cloning or for "live state" backup (meaning it will make images on the fly while Windows is running). It works on Server 2003 as well (I use it to backup my servers). I have never used it to clone 1 drive to another but it's supposed to work just fine. You can find it here:

http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

You might have to run it from BartPE to clone 1 drive to another (it doesn't run in DOS), and if you do you'll need to borrow someone's XP disc to build a BartPE boot CD. You can find the info for that here:

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

If this doesn't work for you there is another free utility called Partimage included with the Linux based System Rescue Disk but I have never tried it:

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

CTMorseJr:

DriveImage XML works great and can be used for cloning or for "live state" backup (meaning it will make images on the fly while Windows is running). It works on Server 2003 as well (I use it to backup my servers). I have never used it to clone 1 drive to another but it's supposed to work just fine. You can find it here:

http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

You might have to run it from BartPE to clone 1 drive to another (it doesn't run in DOS), and if you do you'll need to borrow someone's XP disc to build a BartPE boot CD. You can find the info for that here:

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

If this doesn't work for you there is another free utility called Partimage included with the Linux based System Rescue Disk but I have never tried it:

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

 This info is quite helpful, thank you very much!

I also wanted to ask you... when you say "copy" do you mean that all of the data from my current hard drives will essentially be transferred to my new hard drive as well? 

 Basically what I want to know is... let's say my old hard drive data consists of a total of 170 gigs of combined data (between both of my old drives)... so when I "clone" the data on to my new HDD, will the data also take up 170 gigs of space on my new HDD, or will the 170 gigs of data be shared between all 3 of the drives collectively?  I know that probably sounds complicated... I'm not very good at explaining things like this.  In other words, I guess, will the 170 gigs of data be duplicated so that I will now have a grand total of 340 gigs (170x2) of data being used on all 3 of the hard drives?  Or will it still just be 170 gigs of data being used among all 3 drives together?

If you clone a drive it makes an exact copy of the source drive on the destination drive so you would have the exact same data on both. If you have 140 GB on the larger of the existing drives and you clone it to the new drive then you would have the same 140 GB of data on both. The third drive would be unaffected since you can only do a 1 to 1 clone, not 2 drives to 1. You only need to clone a drive in order to move the OS from 1 drive to another. If you're happy leaving the OS on the drive it is now, you don't need to bother with cloning. Simply format the new drive and copy the data you want on the new HD to it from within Windows.

Watch out, when you clone, it erases the destination disk.  Clone from the OS hard drive to the new one, then as CTMorseJr said, go in windows and drag and drop the rest from the other drive to the new one.

here's how to tell the difference in cables:

most of the time (not ALWAYS)--

an IDE cable will be grey colored, flat, wide and ribbed (for your computer's pleasure). one side will have a red stripe on it. it will also usually have 3 connectors on it.. 1 on one end, 1 on the other end, and then one in the middle.

on the other hand, SATA cables are much thinner and have an "L" shaped connector (if you look at where it connects). the cables are often more brightly colored.. like red or blue or orange. they only have 2 ends.

here's a simple picture that makes my entire explanation redundant:

http://content.answers.com/main/content/img/CDE/_SATPAT.JPG

basically, it should say on the drive. if it doesn't, look at where the cables connect into the drive. do you see an L shaped connector? then it's a SATA drive. do you see a bunch of pins sticking out? then it's PATA/IDE.
 

just a little more info for you in case you were curious...

older computers typically have 2 IDE channels/ports. they are called the "primary" and "secondary" channels. under each of those channels, you can have a master and a slave device. so you have 4 choices of what a drive could be... primary master, primary slave, secondary master, secondary slave. typically, the main hard drive would be the primary master and a CD/DVD drive would be the secondary master, since IDE channels share bandwidth (speed). that is, both devices on the primary channel will share their bandwidth, and same goes for the secondary channel. so if you had two hard drives, you'd want to put them on different channels (one on the primary, one on the secondary) to prevent speed bottlenecks.

with the newer computers, they use the SATA interface, which doesn't use the same master/slave construct. SATA ports are independent of each other, so there's no master/slave relationship. newer computers also sometimes (for legacy support) will have the standard primary/secondary ide ports, or often they only have 1 IDE port/channel.

good info from the others..  if you're going to "clone" a hard drive, you're going to do exactly that.. clone 1 drive to 1 drive. if you are cloning 2 drives, you'll have 2 exact copies of those two drives when you're done.. with the files taking up the same amount of space as they were on the original hard drives.

 yes, windows will copy over perfectly (without needing the disc) as long as you CLONE or IMAGE the drive, and not simply just copy the files over. if you just copy the windows folders and everything over it won't work. so you'll need some software that can do a clone/image/1-to-1 copy of your drive.

once you have that, what you'll be doing is probably pretty simple --- clone the 200 gig hard drive to the 320 gig one. (i'll assume Windows is on the old 200gb drive) next, to avoid any problems, i would connect only the new 320GB drive to the computer, then start the computer up and make sure it  boots into windows fine. if something goes wrong, you can always put in the original 2 hard drives and get online and ask for help. if it does boot up fine, verify that all of your files are there, then you can connect the 200GB drive and format/erase it when you're ready.

also, i'd put the 320gb (or whatever drive you're going to have Windows on) on the lowest port #, (maybe SATA port 0 or 1), then put the others on the next sequential ones. you may or may not have trouble if the computer tries to assign the drive letters out of order. you will want the hard drive with your operating system (windows) to be drive C: -- if you start the computer up like i said with only 1 hard drive at first, it should assign the drives the correct letters once they are attached.

good luck w/ it! let us know how it goes. 

Chinch:

...so if you had two hard drives, you'd want to put them on different channels (one on the primary, one on the secondary) to prevent speed bottlenecks.

You'd want too, but most MFRs do not provide cables that will allow the average owner to make a change like that....without buying more cables anyway.  

Ok, got a solution here.  The link that was posted above is a link to the PEbuilder.  That is not the actual disk you use.  BartPE has ghost built into it.  I am currently uploading the BartPE cd image.  When it gets done uploading, you can download it and burn it to a disk and boot off it and clone to your hearts desire.

You will also need a program to burn .iso images.  If you need one, ISO Recorder has been recommended.  If you want to choose a different one you can follow the link in my sig and look under CD/DVD burning.

I will post the link to BartPE here when it finishes uploading in about 85 mins.  I hope you dont have dial-up, this sucker is 68.4 MB after being zipped.

EDIT:
Ok, the upload is done and the like is NOT HERE

click the free button and follow the instructions. 

Good luck 

EDIT:

Had to get rid of the link, it would be illegal for me to let you folks have it.  Instead get PEbuilder and make your own.  If you need help making it, PM me.

Haha you guys are awesome, especially you kunzy.

 Thank you so very much.

I was about to ask about the same question, but I read this. 

 

I'm kicking around the idea of getting a 150gb raptor for all my games and OS and moving all my music and videos to the 250gb hdd, but I was worried I would have to reinstall everything.   

Woah there, BartPE only has Ghost built in if you BUILD the PE disc with Ghost on it.

Technically when you build a "Stock" BartPE using PE builder, it does not come with anything except frewware apps.

You can apply the Ghost (and other utilities) app with a plug-in, but the plug-in assumes you have bought Ghost and have the application files available...

CheapAsianGamerGuy wrote:

     Woah there, BartPE only has Ghost built in if you BUILD the PE disc with Ghost on it.

I was going to mention the same thing and also that you need Ghost32 to run it from BartPE.

PartImage found on the System Rescue Disc is free and is supposed to work quite well.

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

Plus, you don't need a WinXP installation disc to build it.

Thats odd.  I didnt include it and yet it showed up on the disk when i booted off of it.  And it had like 8 different versions on it to.

Maybe i will double check that. 

EDIT:

 

 

EDIT EDIT:
I just realized that this isnt the disk i made.  So it could heave been added.  I will remake one and let you know what it does.

Well, i just built one of my own and it appears that AsianGamer was right, it was a plug in.

I am also going to have to pull my disk image back.  I read the EULA of peBuilder and it mentioned that it was using my key and that cant get out.  Not only that but it would be considered illegal.

So you are going to have to use your own files to make your own disk

And their is another program called drive snapshot in the one i just made.  But in order to use it, you have to set the date in the BIOS to 02-01-06.  Drive Snapshot expired on 03-1-06 so that is a work around.

Sorry 

:D

You are totally cool Kunzy, there's never a need to correct anything you say, even if you accidentally get something wrong, you almost always self-correct. You rawk, man~

I think some old(er) copies of PowerQuest Drive Image Pro are floating aroudn out there for sale cheap ($25ish), look for the powerquest logo, Symantec bought them out and now charge $50-$100 ish for the same (re-badged) product.

CheapAsianGamerGuy:

:D

You are totally cool Kunzy, there's never a need to correct anything you say, even if you accidentally get something wrong, you almost always self-correct. You rawk, man~

I think some old(er) copies of PowerQuest Drive Image Pro are floating aroudn out there for sale cheap ($25ish), look for the powerquest logo, Symantec bought them out and now charge $50-$100 ish for the same (re-badged) product.

lol, thanks dude.

I did a little looking and found a page full of bartPE plugins.  Its here.  And there is also some programs very similar to ghost.  It is here

Anyways, good luck
 

CTMorseJr:

If you clone a drive it makes an exact copy of the source drive on the destination drive so you would have the exact same data on both. If you have 140 GB on the larger of the existing drives and you clone it to the new drive then you would have the same 140 GB of data on both. The third drive would be unaffected since you can only do a 1 to 1 clone, not 2 drives to 1. You only need to clone a drive in order to move the OS from 1 drive to another. If you're happy leaving the OS on the drive it is now, you don't need to bother with cloning. Simply format the new drive and copy the data you want on the new HD to it from within Windows.

I am still going to clone it but not yet.

First I just want to get my new HDD formatted so I can store some stuff on it.  So how do I format it?  Just plug it into my mobo and boot it up and then what?  Does it format itself automatically or do I have to do something once I boot the computer up?

Thanks!

CTMorseJr:

If you clone a drive it makes an exact copy of the source drive on the destination drive so you would have the exact same data on both. If you have 140 GB on the larger of the existing drives and you clone it to the new drive then you would have the same 140 GB of data on both. The third drive would be unaffected since you can only do a 1 to 1 clone, not 2 drives to 1. You only need to clone a drive in order to move the OS from 1 drive to another. If you're happy leaving the OS on the drive it is now, you don't need to bother with cloning. Simply format the new drive and copy the data you want on the new HD to it from within Windows.

I am still going to clone it but not yet.

First I just want to get my new HDD formatted so I can store some stuff on it.  So how do I format it?  Just plug it into my mobo and boot it up and then what?  Does it format itself automatically or do I have to do something once I boot the computer up?

Thanks!

NeoBix:

...or do I have to do something once I boot the computer up?Thanks!

start---right click "my computer", click -manage-.  when "computer management" window opens, maximize it.

in left pane click "disk management".  Locate your un-partitioned, unformatted disk. 

you will have to

1 partition it.

2 format it

before use.

 

Tallon41:

NeoBix:

...or do I have to do something once I boot the computer up?Thanks!

start---right click "my computer", click -manage-.  when "computer management" window opens, maximize it.

in left pane click "disk management".  Locate your un-partitioned, unformatted disk. 

you will have to

1 partition it.

2 format it

before use.

 

Ok sweet, thanks Tallon. I will be able to both partition it and format it from the computer management + disk management window?

 I honestly figured it would've been more complicated than that.  I don't need to go into my BIOS or anything like that?  Anyway if that's all I have to do then I will be pleasantly surprised.

 BTW how long does it usually take to partition & format it approximately?

 Thanks again man.

yes you may partition and format both from disk management window.

as to how long, the partition is nearly instantaneous.....formatting will depend on whether you use 'quick' or 'regular' format, and how large your drive is.....

quick takes a min or two, while a full format could take 30mins to an hour.

edit: if you plan to put another windows OS on that drive, you need to 'mark as -active-" the primary partition, if your create more than one.